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63th Congress, 3d Session - . - - Senate Document No. 384 



ADDRESS 



Senator Henry Cabot Lodge 



OF MASSACHUSETTS 



IN HONOR OF 



Theodore Roosevelt 

EX-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
BEFORE THE 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 



SUNDAY, FEBRUABY 9, 1919. 






WASHINGTON 

GOV^ERNAIENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1919 



E757 



SENATE RESOLITION NO. U7. 

iBi-port>d l)V Mr. .'^mu*.'! ) 



In THi; Skn.\tk tn rni: rMri;i) States, 

I'rhnianj 10. Wt9. 
Resolved, That the nianuscript entitkcl "Address of Senator 
Henry Cabot Lodge, in honor of TheocJorc Roosevelt, before the 
Congress of the United States, Sunday, February 9, 1919," be 
printed as a Senate Document, an«l tliat 10.000 additional copies 
be printed for tlu' use of llie Senate Docuintiil Room. 

Attest: 

J.^MES M. IUker. 

Serretanj. 

ft. Of d. 
MAft 28 1915 



Theodore Roosevelt 



A tower is fallen, a star is set ! Alas ! Alas ! for Celin. 

nPHE words of lamentation from the old Moorish 
ballad, which in boyhood we used to recite, must, 
I think, have risen to many lips when the world was 
told that Theodore Roosevelt was dead. But whatever 
the phrase the thought was instant and everywhere. 
Variously expressed, you heard it in the crowds about 
the bulletin boards, from the man in the street and the 
man on the railroads, from the farmer in the fields, the 
women in the shops, in the factories, and in the homes. 
The pulpit found in his life a text for sermons. The 
judge on the bench, the child at school, alike paused for 
a moment, conscious of a loss. The cry of sorrow came 
from men and women of all conditions, high and low, 
rich and poor, from the learned and the ignorant, from 
the multitude who had loved and followed him, and 
from those who had opposed and resisted him. The 
newspapers pushed aside the absorbing reports of the 
events of these fateful days and gave pages to the 



4 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

man who had died. Flasheci beneath the ocean and 
tlirouf^h the air went the announcement of his death, 
and back came a world-wide response from courts 
and cabinets, from press and people, in other and far- 
distant lands. Through it all ran a golden thread of 
personal feeling which gleams so rarely in the somber 
formalism of public grief. Everywhere the people 
felt in their hearts that: 

A power was passing from the Earth 
To breathless Nature's dark abyss. 

It would seem that here was a man, a private citizen, 
conspicuous i)y no oflice, with no glitter of power 
about him, no ability to reward or punish, gone from 
the earthly life, who must have been unusual even 
among the leaders of men, and who thus demands 
our serious consideration. 

This is a thought to be borne in mind to-day. We 
meet to render honor to the dead, to the great American 
whom we mourn. But there is something more to be 
done. We must remember that when History, with 
steady hand and calm eyes, free from the passions of 
the j)ast, comes to make up the final account, she will 
call as her principal witnesses the contemporaries of 
the man or Ihe event awaiting lier \ci-(lict. Here and 
eisewhere the men and women wlio knew Tiieodore 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 5 

Roosevelt or who belong to his period will give pubhc 
utterance to their emotions and to their judgments in 
regard to him. This will be part of the record to which 
the historian will turn when our living present has 
become the past, of which it is his duty to write. Thus 
is there a responsibility placed upon each one of us 
who will clearly realize that here, too, is a duty to pos- 
terity, whom we would fain guide to the truth as we 
see it, and to w^hose hands we commit our share in 
the history of our beloved country — that history so 
much of which was made under his leadership. 

We can not approach Theodore Roosevelt along the 
beaten paths of eulogy or satisfy ourselves with the 
empty civilities of commonplace funereal tributes, 
for he did not make his life journey over main- 
traveled roads, nor was he ever commonplace. Cold 
and pompous formalities would be unsuited to him 
who was devoid of affectation, w^ho was never self- 
conscious, and to whom posturing to draw the public 
gaze seemed not only repellent but vulgar. He had 
that entire simplicity of manners and modes of life 
which is the crowning result of the highest culture 
and the fmest nature. Like Cromwell, he would 
ahvays have said : " Paint me as I am." In that spirit, 
in his spirit of devotion to truth's simplicity, I shall 



6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

try to speak of him to-day in the presence of the rep- 
resentatives of the great Government of which he was 
for seven years the head. 

The rise of any man from humble or still more from 
sordid beginnings to the heights of success always and 
naturally appeals strongly to the imagination. It fur- 
nishes a vivid contrast which is as much admired as it 
is leadily understood. It sliil retains the wonder 
which such success awakened in the days of hereditary 
lawgivers and high privileges of birth. Birth and for- 
tune, liowcNcr, mean much less now than two cen- 
turies ago. To climb from the place of a printer's boy 
to the highest rank in science, politics, and diplomacy 
would be far easier to-day than in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, given a genius like I^'ranklin to do it. Moreover 
the real marvel is in the soaring achievement itself, no 
matter what the origin of the man who comes by " the 
people's unbought giace to rule his native land " and 
who on descending from the odicial pinnacle still 
leads and inllncnccs thousands u|)()n thousands of 
his fellow men. 

Theodore Hooscm-U had liic good tOitunc to l)e horn 
of a well-known, long-established (aniily. with every 
facility for education and with an atmosphere of pa- 
triotism and disinterested service both to countrv and 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 7 

humanity all about him. In his father he had before 
him an example of lofty public spirit, from which it 
would have been difficult to depart. But if the work 
of his ancestors relieved him from the hard struggle 
which meets an unaided man at the outset, he also 
lacked the spur of necessity to prick the sides of his 
intent, in itself no small loss. As a balance to the 
opportunity which was his without labor, he had not 
only the later difficulties which come to him to whom 
fate has been kind at the start; he had also spread 
before him the temptations inseparable from such 
inherited advantages as fell to his lot — temptations 
to a life of sports and pleasure, to lettered ease, to 
an amateur's career in one of the fine arts, perhaps 
to a money-making business, likewise an inheritance, 
none of them easily to be set aside in obedience to 
the stern rule that the larger and more facile the 
opportunity the greater and more insistent the respon- 
sibility. How he refused to tread the pleasant paths 
that opened to him on all sides and took the instant 
way which led over the rough road of toil and action 
his life discloses. 

At the beginning, moreover, he had physical diffi- 
culties not lightly to be overcome. He was a delicate 
child, suffering acutely from attacks of asthma. He 



8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

was not a strong boy, was retiring, fond of books, and 
with an intense but solitary devotion to natural his- 
tory. As his health gradually improved he became 
possessed by the belief, although he perhaps did not 
then formulate it, that in the lields of active life a man 
coukl do that wliitii he willed to do; and this faith was 
with him to the end. It became very evident when he 
went to Harvard." lie made himself an athlete by sheer 
jiard work. Hampered by extreme near-sigiitedness, 
he became none the less a formidable boxer and an 
excellent shot. He stood high in scholarship, but as 
he worked hard, so he played hartl, and was popular 
in the university and beloved by his friends. For a 
shy and delicate boy all this meant solid achievement, 
as well as unusual determination and force of will. 
.Apparently he look early [o heart and carrieil out to 
funillment llie noble lines of (Hough's Dipsychus: 

In light things 
Prove thou the arms tliou long'st to glorify. 
Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks 
Whence come great Nature's Captains. .\n(l high deeds 
Haunt not the fring>- edges of the light. 
But the pell-null of men. 

When a youiii^ man lonus out of college he descends 
suddenly from (lie highest place in a little world to a 
very obscure corner in a great one. It is something of 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 9 

a shock, and there is apt to be a chill in the air. Unless 
the young man's life has been planned beforehand and 
a place provided for him by others, which is excep- 
tional, or unless he is fortunate in a strong and domi- 
nating purpose or talent which drives him to science or 
art or some particular profession, he finds himself at 
this period pausing and wondering where he can get a 
grip upon the vast and confused world into which he 
has been plunged. 

It is a trying and only too frequently a disheartening 
experience, this looking for a career, this effort to find 
employment in a huge and hurrying crowd which 
appears to have no use for the newcomer, Roosevelt, 
thus cast forth on his own resources — his father, so 
beloved by him, having died two years before — fell to 
work at once, turning to the study of the law, which he 
did not like, and to the completion of a history of the 
War of 1812 which he had begun while still in college. 
With few exceptions, young beginners in the difficult 
art of writing are either too exuberant or too dry. 
Roosevelt said that his book was as dry as an encyclo- 
pedia, thus erring in precisely the direction one would 
not have expected. The book, be it said, was by no 
means so dry as he thought it, and it had some other 
admirable qualities. ^ It was clear and thorough, and 



10 THKODOKE ROOSEVELT. 

the battles by sea and land, especially the former, which 
involved the armaments and crews, the size and speed 
of the ships eni^aged in the I'amcnis Iriyale and sloop 
actions, of which we won eleven out of thirteeen, 
were given with a minute accuracy never before 
allenij)te(i in the accounts of this war, and wiiich made 
the book an authority, a position it holds to this day. 
This was a good deal of sound work for a boy's fii-st 
year out of college. Hut il did not content Roosevelt. 
Inherited intluences and inborn desires made him 
earnest and eager to render some public service. In 
puisuil of this asi)iration lie joined the Twenty-first 
Assembly District Rejjublican .Association of the city of 
New York, for by such machinery all politics were car- 
ried on in tliose days. It was not an association com- 
l)osed of his normal friends: in fact, the members were 
not only eminently practical persons but they were 
iiu-jincd to be rough in ilieir methods. They were 
not dreamers, nor were they laboring under many 
illusions. Roosevelt went among them a complete 
stranger, lie dilVered from them with entire frank- 
ness, concealed nothing, and by his strong and simple 
democratic ways, his intense Americanism, and the 
magical personal attraciion whicli wi'iit willi him to the 
end. made some dcNoled friends. One of the vounger 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 11 

leaders, " Joe " Murray, believed in him, became espe- 
cially attached to him, and so continued until death 
separated them. Through Murray's efforts he was 
elected to the New York Assembly in 1881, and thus 
only one year after leaving college his public career 
began. He was just twenty-three. 

Very few men make an effective State reputation 
in their first year in the lower branch of the State 
legislature. I never happened to hear of one who 
made a national reputation in such a body. Roosevelt 
did both. When he left the assembly after three years' 
service he was a national figure, well known, and of 
real importance, and also a delegate at large from the 
great State of New York to the Republican national 
convention of 1884, where he played a leading part. 
Energy, ability, and the most entire courage were the 
secret of his extraordinary success. It was a time of 
flagrant corporate influence in the New York Legis- 
lature, of the " Black Horse Cavalry," of a group of 
members who made money by sustaining corporation 
measures or by levying on corporations and capital 
through the familiar artifice of " strike bills." Roose- 
velt attacked them all openly and aggressively and 
never silently or quietly. He fought for the impeach- 
ment of a judge solely because he believed the judge 



IL' THROUOHI-: HOOSi:VELT. 

corrupt, which surprised some of his political asso- 
ciates of both parties, liiere beinj^, as one practical 
thinker observed. " no politics in politics." He failed 
to secure the impeachment, but the fij^ht did not fail, 
nor did the people forj^et it: and despite — perhaps 
because of — the enemies he maile, he was twice re- 
elected. He became at the same time a distinct, well- 
defined fii^ure to the American people. He had 
touclic'l the popular ima.^ination. In this way he per- 
formed the unexampled feat of Icavinf^ the New York 
.\ssembly, which he had entered three years before an 
unknown boy. with a national r(.'pulati()u and with his 
name at least known throuf^houl the I'nited States. 
He was twenty-six years old. 

When he left (Ihica.^o at the close of the national con- 
vention in .lune, 1884. he did not return to New York, 
but went ^Vest to the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri 
N'allcy, where he had purchased a ranch in the previous 
year. The early love of natural history which never 
abated had developed into a passion for huntini,' and 
foi- life in the open, lie had bci;un in the wilds of 
Maine and then turned to the West and to a cattle ranch 
to i,M-alify both tastes. The life appealed to liim and he 
came to lo\e it. lie herded and rounded uj) his lattle. 
he worked as a cow-puncher. onl\- rather hardei- than 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 13 

any of them, and in the intervals he hnnted and shot 
big game. He also came in contact with men of a new 
type, rough, sometimes dangerous, but always vigorous 
and often picturesque. With them he had the same 
success as with the practical politicians of the Twenty- 
first Assembly District, although they were widely dif- 
ferent specimens of mankind. But all alike were hu- 
man at bottom and so was Roosevelt. He argued with 
them, rode with them, camped with them, played and 
joked with them, but was always master of his outfit. 
They respected him and also liked him, because he was 
at all times simple, straightforward, outspoken, and 
sincere. He became a popular and well-known figure 
in that western country and was regarded as a good fel- 
low, a " white man," entirely fearless, thoroughly good- 
natured and kind, never quarrelsome, and never safe 
to trifle with, bully, or threaten. The life and experi- 
ences of that time found their way into a book, " The 
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," interesting in descrip- 
tion and adventure and also showing a marked literary 
quality. 

In 1886 he ran as Republican candidate for mayor 
of New York and might have been elected had his own 
party stood by him. But many excellent men of Re- 
publican faith — the " timid good," as he called them — 



14 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

panic-stricken l)y the formidable candidacy of Henr>' 
George, flocked to the support of Mr. Abram Hewitt, 
the Democratic candidate, as tiic man most certain to 
defeat the menacing champion of single taxation. 
Roosevelt was beaten, but his campaign, which was 
entirely his own and the precursor of many others, his 
speeches with their striking quality then visible to the 
country for the first time, all combined to fix the atten- 
tion of the people upon the losing candidate. Roose- 
velt was the one of the candidates who was most inter- 
esting, and again he had touched the imagination of 
the people and cut a little deeper into the popular con- 
sciousness and memory. 

Two years more of private life, devoted to his home, 
where his greatest happiness was always found, to 
his ranch, to reading and writing books, and then came 
an active part in the campaign of 1S88. resulting in 
the election of President Harrison, who matlc him 
civil-service commissioner in the spring of 1889. He 
was in his thirty-first year. Civil-service reform as a 
practical question was then in its initial stages. The 
law establishing it. limited in extent and forced 
through by a few ieadei-s of both parties in tlie Senate, 
was only six years old. The pionioteis of the reforni, 
strong in (|nality. l)ut weak in nunil)ers, had conipelleil 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 15 

a reluctant acceptance of the law by exercising a bal- 
ance-of -power vote in certain States and districts. It 
had few earnest supporters in Congress, some luke- 
warm friends, and many strong opponents. All the 
active politicians were practically against it. Mr. 
Conkling had said that when Dr. Johnson told Boswell 
" that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel " 
he was ignorant of the possibilities of the word " re- 
form," and this witticism met with a large response. 

Civil-service reform, meaning the establishment 
of a classified service and the removal of routine 
administrative offices from politics, had not reached 
the masses of the people at all. The average voter 
knew and cared nothing about it. When six years 
later Roosevelt resigned from the commission the 
great body of the people knew well what civil-service 
reform meant, large bodies of voters cared a great 
deal about it, and it was established and spreading its 
control. We have had many excellent men who have 
done good work in the Civil Service Commission, 
although that work is neither adventurous nor excit- 
ing and rarely attracts public attention, but no one 
has ever forgotten that Theodore Roosevelt was 
once civil-service commissioner. 



16 THEODORE ROOSEN-ELT. 

He found the law strusf^ling for existence, laughed 
at, sneered at, surrounded by enemies in Congress, and 
%vilii but lew ligiiting friends. He threw himself into 
the fray. Congress investigated the commission about 
once a year, which was exactly what Roosevelt desired. 
Annually, too, the opponents of the reform would try 
to defeat the appropriation for the commission, and 
this again was playing into Roosevelt's hands, for it led 
to debates, and the newsi)apers as a rule sustained the 
reform. Senator Gorman mourned in the Senate over 
the cruel fate of a " bright young man " who was 
iniable to tell on examination the distance of Raltimore 
from China, and thus was deprived of his inalienable 
right to serve his country in the post oflke. Roosevelt 
proved that no such (piestion had e\er been asked and 
requested the name of the " bright young man." The 
name was not forthcoming, and the victim of a (pies- 
lion never asked goes down nameless to posterity in 
the Congressional Record as merely a " bright young 
man." Then Ceneral drosvenor. a leading Republican 
of liu- House, (knouncid the commissioner for creilit- 
ing his district with an appointee named Rufus Putnam 
who was not a resident of the district, and Roosevelt 
j)ro(lncc(l a Icttci" from the general recommending 
Rufus Puliiani as a resident of his district and a con- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 17 

stitiient. All this was unusual. Hitherto it had been a 
safe amusement to ridicule and jeer at civil-service 
reform, and here was a commissioner who dared to 
reply vigorously to attacks, and even to prove Senators 
and Congressmen to be wrong in their facts. The 
amusement of baiting the Civil Service Commission 
seemed to be less inviting than before, and, worse still, 
the entertaining features seemed to have passed to the 
public, who enjoyed and approved the commissioner 
who disregarded etiquette and fought hard for the 
law he was appointed to enforce. The law suddenly 
took on new meaning and became clearly visible in 
the public mind, a great service to the cause of good 
government. 

After six years' service in the Civil Service Commis- 
sion Roosevelt left Washington to accept the position 
of president of the Board of Police Commissioners of 
the city of New York, which had been offered to him 
by Mayor Strong. It is speaking within bounds to say 
that the history of the police force of New York has 
been a checkered one in which the black squares have 
tended to predominate. The task which Roosevelt 
confronted was then, as always, difficult, and the 
machinery of four commissioners and a practically 

104612°— 19 3 



18 THEODORE ROOSEVEF.T. 

irremovable chief made action extremely slow and 
uncertain. Roosevelt set Iiimself to expel politics and 
favoritism in appoinlnicnls and promotions and to 
crush corruption everywhere. In some way he drove 
through llie obstacles and effected j^reat improvements, 
allhoui^li permanent betterment was perhaps impos- 
sible, (lood men were appointed and meritorious men 
|)romoted as never before, while the corrupt and dan- 
gerous olliccrs were punished in a numbci-of instances 
suOicicnt, at least, to check and discourage evildoers. 
Discijjline was improved, and the force became very 
loyal to the cliicf commissioner, because they learned 
to realize that he was lighting for right and justice with- 
out fear or favor. The results were also shown in the 
marked decrease of crimi-. wjiich judges jjoinled out 
from the bench. Then, too, it was to be observed that 
a New York police commissioner suddenly attracted 
tiie attention of the country. The work which was be- 
ing done by Roosevelt in New York, his midnight walks 
through the worst ([uarters of the great city, to see 
wlietlier the guardians of the peace did their duly, 
which made the newspapers comjiare him to Ilaroun 
Al Raschid, all appealed to the popular imagination. 
A purely local oiliit' became national in his hands, and 
his picluie ai)peart(l in the shojjs of I'.nropean cities. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 19 

There was something more than vigor and picturesque- 
ness necessary to explain these phenomena. The truth 
is that Roosevelt was really laboring through a welter 
of details to carry out certain general principles which 
went to the very roots of society and government. He 
wished the municipal administration to be something 
far greater than a business man's administration, 
which was the demand that had triumphed at the polls. 
He wanted to make it an administration of the work- 
ingmen, of the dwellers in the tenements, of the pov- 
erty and suffering which haunted the back streets and 
hidden purlieus of the huge city. The people did not 
formulate these purposes as they watched what he was 
doing, but they felt them and understood them by that 
instinct which is often so keen in vast bodies of men. 
The man who was toiling in the seeming obscurity of 
the New York police commission again became very 
distinct to his fellow countrymen and deepened their 
consciousness of his existence and their comprehension 
of his purposes and aspirations. 

Striking as was the effect of this police work, it only 
lasted for two years. In 1897 he was offered by Presi- 
dent McKinley, whom he had energetically supported 
in the preceding campaign, the position of Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy. He accepted at once, for the 



20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

place and the work both appealed to him most 
strongly. The opportunity did not come without 
resistance. The President, an old iriend. liketl him 
and believed in him, but the Secretary of the Navy had 
doubts, and also I'ears that Roosevelt might be a dis- 
turbing and restless assistant. There were many poli- 
ticians, too, especially in his own State, whom his 
activities as civil-service and police commissioner did 
not delight, and these men ojjjjosed him. Hut his 
friends were powerful and de\()ted, and tlie President 
apjjointed him. 

His new i)hu-e had lo him ;t jieculiar atlraiiion. lie 
loved the Navy. He had written its brilliant history in 
the War of 1812. He had done all in his power in stim- 
uhiling pul)lic ojiinioii to support tlie " new Na\y " we 
were just then beginning to build. That war was com- 
ing with Spain he had no doubt. We were unprei)ared, 
of course, even for such a war as this, but Hoosevelt set 
himself to do what could be done. The best and most 
farseeing ofiicers rallied round him, but the opportu- 
nities were limited. There was much in detail accom- 
plished which can not be described here, but two acts 
of his which had very distinct effect upon the fortunes 
of llie war must he noted. He saw very jjiainly — 
allhough most |)eoiile nexir |)erieivicl it al all — that 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 21 

the Philippines would be a vital point in any war with 
Spain. For this reason it was highly important to have 
the right man in command of the Asiatic Squadron. 
Roosevelt was satisfied that Dewey was the right man, 
and that his rival was not. He set to work to secure 
the place for Dewey. Through the aid of the Senators 
from Dewey's native State and others, he succeeded. 
Dewey was ordered to the Asiatic Squadron. Our rela- 
tions with Spain grew worse and worse. On February 
25, 1898, war was drawing very near, and that Saturday 
afternoon Roosevelt happened to be Acting Secretary, 
and sent out the following cablegram: 

Dewey — Hongkong. 

Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hongkong. 
Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war, Spain, 
your duty will be to see that the Spanish Squadron does not 
leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in the 
Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders. 

Roosevelt. 

I believe he was never again permitted to be Acting 
Secretary. But the deed was done. The wise word of 
readiness had been spoken and was not recalled. War 
came, and as April closed, Dewey, all prepared, slipped 
out of Hongkong and on May 1st fought the battle of 
Manila Bay. 



22 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

Roosevelt, however, did not continue lonj^ in liie 
Navy Department. .Many of his friends felt that he 
was doing such admirable work there that he ought to 
remain, but as soon as war was declared he determined 
to go, and his resolution was not to be shaken. Noth- 
ing could prevent his fighting for his country when 
the country was at war. Congress had authorized three 
volunteer regiments of Cavalry, and the President and 
tlie Secrelary of War gave to Leonard Wood — then a 
surgeon in the Regular Army — as colonel, and to Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, as lieutenant colonel, authority to raise 
one of these regiments, known ofiicially as the First 
United States Volunteer Cavalry, and to all the country 
as the " Rough Riders." The regiment was raised 
chielly in the Southwest and West, where Roosevelt's 
popularity and reputation among the cowboys and the 
ranchmen brought many eager recruits to serve with 
him. .\flcr the regiment had been organized and 
C(iuii)pe(l they had sonic (iiHiculty in getting to Cuba, 
but Roo.sevelt as usual bioke through all obstacles, 
and finally succeeded, with Colonel Wood, in getting 
away with two battalions, leaving one batlalion and the 
horses behind. 

The regimeni got inio action inmu'diatily on landing 
and forced its way. alter sonic sli;u|t lighting in the 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 23 

jungle, to the high ground on which were placed the 
fortifications which defended the approach to San- 
tiago. Colonel Wood was almost immediately given 
command of a brigade, and this left Roosevelt colonel 
of the regiment. In the battle which ensued and which 
resulted in the capture of the positions commanding 
Santiago and the bay, the Rough Riders took a leading 
part, storming one of the San Juan heights, which they 
christened Kettle Hill, with Roosevelt leading the men 
in person. It was a dashing, gallant assault, well led 
and thoroughly successful. Santiago fell after the 
defeat of the fleet, and then followed a period of sick- 
ness and suffering — the latter due to unreadiness — 
where Roosevelt did eveiything with his usual driving 
energy to save his men, whose loyalty to their colonel 
went with them through life. The war was soon over, 
but brief as it had been Roosevelt and his men had 
highly distinguished themselves, and he stood out in 
the popular imagination as one of the conspicuous 
figures of the conflict. He brought his regiment back 
to the United States, where they were mustered out, and 
almost immediately afterwards he was nominated by 
the Republicans as their candidate for governor of the 
State of New York. The situation in New York was 
unfavorable for the Republicans, and the younger men 



24 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

told Senator Piatt, who dominateci the organization 
and who had no desire for Roosevelt, that unless he 
was nominated they could not win. Thus forced, the 
organization accepted him, and it was well for the 
party that they did so. The campaign was a sharp 
one and ver>' doubtful, but Roosevelt was elected by 
a narrow margin and assumed office at the beginning 
of the new year of 1899. He was then in his forty- 
first year. 

Many problems faced him and none were evaded. 
He was well aware that the " organization " under Sen- 
ator Piatt would not like many thing he was sure to do, 
but he determined that he would have neither pei-sonal 
quarrels nor faction fights. He knew, being blessed 
with strong common sense, that the Republican Party, 
his own parly, was the inslriinunl by which alone he 
could attain his ends, and he did not intend that it 
should be blunted and made useless by internal strife. 
And yet he meant to have his own way. It was a difli- 
cull role which he undertook to play, but he succeeded, 
lie iuul many dilTerences with the organization man- 
agers, but he declined to lose his tenii)er or to have a 
break, and he also refused to yield when he fell he was 
standini^ for the right and a principle was at stake. 
Thus he prevailed, lie won on the canal (pieslion. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 25 

changed the insurance commissioner, and carried the 
insurance legislation he desired. As in these cases, so 
it was in lesser things. In the police commission he 
had been strongly impressed by the dangers as he saw 
them of the undue and often sinister influence of busi- 
ness, finance, and great money interests upon govern- 
ment and politics. These feelings were deepened and 
broadened by his experience and observation on the 
larger stage of State administration. The belief that 
political equality must be strengthened and sustained 
by industrial equality and a larger economic opportu- 
nity was constantly in his thoughts until it became a 
governing and guiding principle. 

Meantime he grew steadily- stronger among the 
people, not only of his own State but of the country, 
for he was well known throughout the West, and there 
they were watching eagerly to see how the ranchman 
and colonel of Rough Riders, who had touched both 
their hearts and their imagination, was faring as gov- 
ernor of New York. The office he held is always re- 
garded as related to the Presidency, and this, joined 
to his striking success as governor, brought him into 
the presidential field wherever men speculated about 
the political future. It was universally agreed that 
McKinley was to be renominated, and so the talk 

104612°— 19 4 



26 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

tuiiitil to niakiiij^ Roosevelt \"\cv President. A friend 
wrote to iiini in the summer of 189U as to this drift of 
opinion, then assuming serious proportions. " Do not 
attempt," he said, " to thwait the popular desire. You 
are not a man nor are your close friends men who can 
plan, arrange, and manage you into office. You must 
accept the popular wish, whatever it is, follow your 
star, and let the future care for itself. It is the tradi- 
tion of our politics, and a very poor tradition, that the 
Vice Presidency is a shelf. It ought to he, anil there 
is no reason why it should not be, a stepping-stone. 
Put there by the popular desire, it would be so to you." 
This view, quite naturally, did not commend itself to 
(io\ernor Roosevelt at the moment. He was doing 
valuai)le work in New York: ln' was deeply engaged 
in important ref\)rm.s which he iuul much at heart and 
which he wished to carry Ihrougli: and the \'ice Presi- 
dency did not attract him. .\ year later he was at 
Pliiladcliihia. a delegate at large from his State, with 
ills mind unchanged as to the \'ice Picsidency, while 
his New \'oik friends, anxious to liaxc him continue 
his work at .Mbany, were urging him to refuse. .Sen- 
ator IMatt, for ol)\ious reasons, wished to make him 
\iiv President, another obstaile to his taking it. 
RooscNcIt forced the New \'()rk delegation to agree on 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 27 

some one else for Vice President, but he could not 
hold the convention, nor could Senator Hanna, who 
wiselj^ accepted the situation. Governor Roosevelt 
was nominated on the first ballot, all other candidates 
withdrawing. He accepted the nomination, little as he 
liked it. 

Thus when it came to the point he instinctively 
followed his star and grasped the unvacillating hand 
of destiny. Little did he think that destiny would lead 
him to the White House through a tragedy which cut 
him to the heart. He was on a mountain in the Adiron- 
dacks w^ien a guide made his way to him across the 
forest with a telegram telling him that McKinley, the 
wise, the kind, the gentle, with nothing in his heart but 
good will to all men, was dying from a wound inflicted 
by an anarchist murderer, and that the Vice President 
must come to Buffalo at once. A rapid night drive 
through the woods and a special train brought him to 
Buffalo. McKinley was dead before he arrived, and 
that evening Governor Roosevelt w^as sw^orn in as 
President of the United States. 

Within the narrow limits of an address it is impos- 
sible to give an account of an administration of seven 
years which will occupy hundreds of pages when the 
history of the United States during that period is writ- 



28 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

ten. It was a memorable administration, memorable 
in itself and not by the accident of events, and large 
in its accomplishment. It began with a surprise. 
There were persons in the United States who had care- 
fully cultivated, and many people who had accepted 
without thought, the idea that Roosevelt was in some 
way a dangerous man. 'I'liey gloomily predicted that 
there would be a violent change in tiie policies and in 
the oflicers of the McKinley administration. But 
Roosevelt had not studied llie history of his country in 
vain. He knew that in three of the four cases where 
Vice Presidents had succeeded to the Presidency 
through the deatii of the elected President their coming 
had resulted in a violent shifting of policies and men, 
and, as a consequence, in most injurious dissensions, 
which in two ca.ses at least proved fatal to the parly in 
power. In all four instances the tinal obliteration of 
the Vice President who had come into power through 
the death of his chief was comi)lele. President Roose- 
velt did not intend to permit any of these results. As 
soon as he came into oHice he announced that he in- 
tended to retain Presideiil McKinley"s Cabinet and to 
carry out his policies, which had been sustained at the 
polls. To tho.se overzealous friends who suggested 
that he could not trust the appointees of President 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 29 

McKinley and that he would be but a pallid imitation 
of his predecessor he replied that he thought, in any 
event, the administration would be his, and that if new 
occasions required new policies he felt that he could 
meet them, and that no one would suspect him of 
being a pallid imitation of anybody. His decision, 
however, gratified and satisfied the country, and it was 
not apparent that Roosevelt was hampered in any way 
in carrying out his own policies by this wise refusal 
to make sudden and violent changes. 

Those who were alarmed about what he might do had 
also suggested that with his combative propensities he 
was likely to involve the countiy in war. Yet there 
never has been an administration, as afterwards ap- 
peared, when we were more perfectly at peace with all 
the world, nor were our foreign relations ever in danger 
of producing hostilities. But this was not due in the 
least to the adoption of a timid or yielding foreign pol- 
icy; on the contrary, it was owing to the firmness of the 
President in all foreign questions and the knowledge 
which other nations soon acquired that President 
Roosevelt was a man who never threatened unless he 
meant to carry out his threat, the result being that he 
was not obliged to threaten at all. One of his earliest 
successes was forcing the settlement of the Alaskan 



30 THEODORE ROOSEX-ELT. 

bounilan- queslion. which was the single open qucslion 
with (ireat Britain that was really dangerous and con- 
tained within itself possibilities of war. The accom- 
plishment of this settlement was followed later, while 
Mr. Hoot was Secretary of State, by the arrangement 
of all our outstanding difTerences willi Canada, and 
during .Mr. Hoot's tenure of onice over thirty treaties 
were made with dilTerent nations, including a num- 
bei- of practical and valuable treaties of arbitration. 
\\ licii (iermany started to lake advantage of the ilifli- 
culties in \enezuela the alTair culminated in the dis- 
|)atch of Dewey and the licet to the Caribbean, the 
witiidrawal of I^ngland at once, and the agreement 
of (iermany to the reference of all subjects of dif- 
ference to arbitration. It was I^rcsident Hooscvelt 
whose good ollices Itrougiil Russia and Japan together 
in a negotiation which ch)sed the war between those 
two powers. It was Hoosevelt's influence which con- 
tributed powerfully to settling the threatening con- 
trovei-sy between (iermany. France, and Knglanil in 
regard to .Morocco, by the .Mgeciras conference. It 
was Hooscvelt who sent the .Vnierican Heel of battle- 
ships round the world, one of the most convincing 
peace movements ever made on behalf of the liiitcd 
States. Thus it came about that this President, dreaded 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 31 

at the beginning on account of his combative spirit, 
received the Nobel prize in 1906 as the person who had 
contributed most to the peace of the world in the pre- 
ceding years, and his contribution was the result of 
strength and knowledge and not of weakness. 

At home he recommended to Congress legislation 
which was directed toward a larger control of the rail- 
roads and to removing the privileges and curbing 
the power of great business combinations obtained 
through rebates and preferential freight rates. This 
legislation led to opposition in Congress and to much 
resistance by those affected. As we look back, this 
legislation, so much contested at the time, seems very 
moderate, but it was none the less momentous. Presi- 
dent Roosevelt never believed in Government owner- 
ship, but he was thoroughly in favor of strong and 
effective Government supervision and regulation of 
what are now known generally as public utilities. He 
had a deep conviction that the political influence of 
financial and business interests and of great combina- 
tions of capital had become so great that the American 
people were beginning to distrust their own Govern- 
ment, than which there could be no greater peril to 
the Republic, By his measures and by his general 
attitude toward capital and labor both he sought to 



32 THKOUOHE ROOSEVELT. 

restore and maintain tiie confuifnct' of tlic people in 
the Government they had tliemselves created. 

In the Panama (lanal lie left the most endnring, as it 
was the most \ isible, monument of his administration. 
Much criticized at the moment for his action in rei^ard 
to it, which time since then has justified and which his- 
tory will praise, the great fad remains that the canal is 
tin re. lU' said himself that he made up his mind that 
it was his duly to establish the canal and have the 
debate about it afterwards, which seemed to him bet- 
ter than to begin with indelinite deljate and have no 
canal al all. This is a \ iew which ])osterily both at 
home and abroad will accept and approve. 

These, passing over as we must in silence many other 
beneficent acts, are only a few of the most salient 
features of his administration, stripi)ed of all detail 
and all enlargement. Despite the conilicts which sonu' 
of his domestic policies had produced not only with 
his i)olitical opponeiils Inil within the Republican 
ranks, he was overw lu'lmingly reelected in I'.IOl. and 
N\hen the seven years had closed the lountry gaNC a 
like majority to his chosen successor, taken fi'om his 
own Cabinet. On the 1th of March, lOO'J. he returned 
to private life at tlu' age of lifty. having been the young- 
est I'resich'ut know n lo our hislorv. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 33 

During the brief vacations wliich he had been able to 
secure in the midst of the intense activities of his pub- 
lic life after the Spanish War he had turned for enjoy- 
ment to expeditions in pursuit of big game in the wild- 
est and most unsettled regions of the country. Open- 
air life and all its accompaniments of riding and hunt- 
ing were to him the one thing that brought him the most 
rest and relaxation. Now, having left the Presidency, 
he was able to give full scope to the love of adventure, 
which had been strong with him from boyhood. Soon 
after his retirement from office he went to Africa, ac- 
companied by a scientific expedition sent out by the 
Smithsonian Institution. He landed in East Africa, 
made his way into the interior, and thence to the 
sources of the Nile, after a trip in every way success- 
ful, both in exploration and in pursuit of big game. 
He then came down the Nile through Egypt and thence 
to Europe, and no private citizen of the United States^ 
probably no private man of any country — was ever 
received in a manner comparable to that which met 
Roosevelt in every country in Europe which he visited. 
Evei-y where it was the same — in Italy, in Germany, in 
France, in England. Every honor was paid to him that 
authority could devise, accompanied by every mark of 



34 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

afTcction and adrairalion which the people of those 
countries were able to show. He made few speeches 
while in lanope, but in those lew he did not fail to give 
to the questions and thought of the time real and gen- 
uine contributions, set forth in plain language, always 
vigor(His and often eloquent, lie relurned in the sum- 
mer of 1910 to the United Slates and was greeted with 
a reception on his landing in New York quite equaling 
in interest and enlluisiasni that which had been given 
to him in Europe. 

l-'or two years ai'lcrwards he devoted himself to 
writing, not only articles as contributing etlilor of the 
Outlook, but books of his own and addresses and 
speeches which he was constantly called upon to make. 
No nuin ill pri\ale lil'e proi)ably ever had such an auili- 
ence as he addressed, whether with tongue or pen, 
upon the questions of the day, with a constant refrain 
as to the (lualilies necessary to make men both good 
citizens and good Americans. In the sjjring of 1912 
he decided to become a candidate for the Republican 
nomination for the Presidency, and a very healed 
struggle followed between himself and Piesiilenl Tafl 
for delegations to the convention. The convention 
wlien it assembled in (Ihicago was the stormiest ever 
known in our hislorv. Prt'sidi-nl Tafl was renomi- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 35 

natetl, most of the Roosevelt delegates refusing to vole, 
and a Inrge body of Republicans thereupon formed a 
new party called the "Progressive" and nominated 
Mr. Roosevelt as their candidate. This division into 
two nearly equal parts of the Republican Party, which 
had elected Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft in succession 
by the largest majorities ever known, made the vic- 
tory of the Democratic candidate absolutely certain. 
Colonel Roosevelt, however, stood second in the poll, 
receiving 4,119,507 votes, carrying six States and win- 
ning eighty-eight electoral votes. There never has 
been in political history, when all conditions are con- 
sidered, such an exhibition of extraordinary personal 
strength. To have secured eighty-eight electoral votes 
when his own party was hopelessly divided, with no 
great historic party name and tradition behind him, 
with an organization which had to be hastily brought 
together in a few weeks, seems almost incredible, and 
in all his career there is no display of the strength 
of his hold upon the people equal to this. 

In the following year he yielded again to the longing 
for adventure and exploration. Going to South Amer- 
ica, he made his way up through Paraguay and western 
Rrazil, and then across a trackless wilderness of jungle 
and down an unknown river into the Valley of the 



36 THKODORE HOOSEVELT. 

Amazon. It was a rcmarkal)k' expedition and carried 
him througil wliat is probably the most deadly climate 
in the world. He suffered severely from the fever, the 
poison of which ik-mt kft liini and which finally 
shortened his lil'e. 

In the next year the great war began, and Cohjnel 
Roosevelt threw himself into it with all the energy 
of his nature. With Major Gardner he led the great 
light for preparedness in a country utterly unpre- 
l)arcd. He saw very plainly that in all human prob- 
ability it would be impossible for us to keep out of 
the war. Therefore in season and out of season he 
demanded tiiat we should make ready. He and Major 
Gardner, with the others who joined them, roused a 
widespread and powerful sentiment in Ihe country. 
but thci'c was no practical effect on the .Vrniy. The 
Navy was the single place where anything was really 
done, and that only in the bill of 1916, so that war 
finally came upon us as unready as Roosevelt had 
feared we should be. Yet the campaign he made 
was not in vain, for in addition to tiie question of 
preparation he spoke earnestly of other things, other 
hiiiiiing questions, and lie always s])oke to an enor- 
mous body of listeners e\ery\\ liere. lie would have 
had us protest and lake action at the very beginning, 
in I'Jl 1. when Helgium was invaded. He would ha\e 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 37 

had US go to war \Yhen the murders of the Liisitania 
were perpetrated. He tried to stir the soul and rouse 
the spirit of the American people, and despite every 
obstacle he did awaken them, so that when the hour 
came, in April, 1917, a large proportion of the Ameri- 
can people were even then ready in spirit and in 
hope. How telling his work had been was proved 
by the confession of his country's enemies, for when 
he died the only discordant note, the only harsh 
words, came from the German press. Germany knew 
whose voice it was that more powerfully than any 
other had called Americans to the battle in behalf of 
freedom and civilization, where the advent of the 
armies of the United States gave victory to the cause 
of justice and righteousness. 

^Yhen the United States went to war Colonel Roose- 
velt's one desire was to be allowed to go to the fight- 
ing line. There if fate had laid its hand upon him 
it would have found him glad to fall in the trenches 
or in a charge at the head of his men, but it was not 
permitted to him to go, and thus he was denied the 
reward which he would have ranked above all others, 
" the great prize of death in battle." But he was a 
patriot in every fiber of his being, and personal dis- 
appointment in no manner slackened or cooled his 
zeal. Evervthing that he could do to forward the 



38 THEODORF ROOSEVELT. 

war, to quicken preparation, to stimulate patriotism, 
to urge on eflkient action, was done. Day and nii^ht. 
in season and out of season, he never ceased his 
labors. Although prevented from going to France 
himself, he gave to the great conflict that which was 
far dealer to him than his own life. I can not say 
that he sent his four .sons, because they all went at once, 
as everyone knew that their father's sons would go. 
Two have been badly wounded; one was killed. He 
met the blow with the most splendid and unflinching 
courage, met it as .Siward. the Earl of Xorlhumberland, 
receives in tiic play the news of his son's death: 

Siw. Had ho his hurls bi.forc? 

Ross. .\y, on Ihc front. 

Siw. Why, then, God's soldier be he! 

Had I as many sons as I have liairs, 
I would not wish Ihcm to a fairer diath: 
.\nd .so his knoll is knoll'd. 
.\mong the great tragedies of .Shakespeare, and there 
are none greater in all the literature of man, Macbeth 
was Colonel Roosevelt's favorite, and the moving 
words which 1 Ikim- just (pioted I am sure were in his 
heart and on his lips when he faced with stern resolve 
and self-control the anguish brought to him by the 
(lealh of liis youn-est boy. killed in the glory of a 
braM' and brilliant xoutli. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 39 

He lived to see the right prevail; he lived to see civ- 
ilization triumph over organized barbarism; and there 
was great joy in his heart. In all his last days the 
thoughts which filled his mind were to secure a peace 
which should render Germany forever harmless and 
advance the cause of ordered freedom in evei-y land 
and among every race. This occupied him to the 
exclusion of everything else, except w^hat he called and 
what we like to call Americanism. There was no hour 
down to the end wlien he would not turn aside from 
everything else to preach the doctrine of Americanism, 
of the principles and the faith upon which American 
government rested, and which all true Americans 
should wear in their heart of hearts. He was a great 
patriot, a great man; above all, a great American. His 
country was the ruling, mastering passion of his life 
from the beginning even unto the end. 

So closes the inadequate, most incomplete account 
of a life full of work done and crowded with achieve- 
ment, brief in years and prematurely ended. The 
recitation of the offices which he held and of some of 
the deeds that he did is but a bare, imperfect catalogue 
into which history when we are gone will breathe a 
lasting life. Here to-day it is only a background, and 
that w^hich most concerns us now is what the man 
was of whose deeds done it is possible to make such 



40 THKODORE ROOSEVELT. 

a list. What a man was is ever more important than 
what lie did, hccaiise it is upon wiiat he was that all 
ids achievement depends and his value and meainng 
to his tVllow men must finally rest. 

Theodore Roosevelt always believed that character 
was of greater worth and moment than anything else. 
He possessed abilities of the lirst order, which he was 
disposed to underrate, because he set so much greater 
store upon the moral (lualilies which we bring together 
under the single word " character." 

Let me speak first of his abilities, lie had a power- 
ful, well-trained, ever-active mind. He thought clearly, 
indc{)endently, and with originality and imagination. 
These priceless gifts were sustained by an extraordi- 
nary power of acquisition, joined to a greater quick- 
ness of apprehension, a greater swiftness in seizing 
ui)on llie essence of a (piestion. than 1 have ever hap- 
I)ened to see in any other man. His reading began 
with natural history, then went to general histor>\ 
and thence to the whole field of literature, lie had a 
capacity for concentration which enabled him to read 
witii reinaikable rapidity anything,' which he took up. 
if only for a moment, and which separated him for the 
time being from everything going on about him. The 
sid)jiils upon wliic-h he was well and widely infoinied 
would, il' innintTali'd. till a lar.^e sjjace. and to this 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 41 

power of acquisition was united not only a tenacious 
but an extraordinary accurate memory. It was never 
safe to contest with him on any question of fact or 
figures, whether they related to the ancient Assyrians 
or to the present-day conditions of the tribes of cen- 
tral Africa, to the Syracusan Expedition, as told by 
Thucydides, or to protective coloring in birds and ani- 
mals. He knew and held details always at command, 
but he was not mastered by them. He never failed 
to see the forest on account of the trees or the city on 
account of the houses. 

He made himself a writer, not only of occasional 
addresses and essays, but of books. He had the 
trained thoroughness of the historian, as he showed 
in his history of the War of 1812 and of the " Winning 
of the West," and nature had endowed him with that 
most enviable of gifts, the faculty of narrative and the 
art of the teller of tales. He knew how to weigh evi- 
dence in the historical scales and how- to depict charac- 
ter. He learned to write wdth great ease and fluency. 
He was always vigorous, always energetic, always 
clear and forcible in everything he wrote — nobody 
could ever misunderstand him — and when he allowed 
himself time and his feelings were deeply engaged he 
gave to the world many pages of beauty as well as 
power, not only in thought but in form and style. At 



42 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

the same time he made himself a public speaker, and 
here again, through a practice probably unequaled in 
amount, lie became one of the most elTective in all our 
history. In speaking, as in writing, he was always 
full of force and energ>'; he drove home his argu- 
ments and never was misunderstood. In many of 
his more carefully prepared addresses are to be found 
passages of impressive eloquence, touched with imagi- 
nation and instinct with grace and feeling. 

He had a large capacity for administration, clear- 
ness of vision, promjjtness in decision, and a thor- 
ough apprehension of what constituted efficient or- 
ganization. All the vast and varied work which he 
accomplished could not have been done unless he had 
had most exceptional natural abilities, but behind 
them, most important of all, was the driving force of 
an intense energy and the ever-present belief that a 
man could do what he willed to do. As he made him- 
.self an athlete, a horseman, a good shot, a bold 
explorer, so he made himself an exceptionally suc- 
cessful writer and speaker. Only a most abnormal 
energ\' would luivc tnablcd him lo enter and concjuer 
in so many fields of intellectual achievement. Hut 
something more than energy and determination is 
needed tor the largest success, especially in the 
world's high places. The lirsl reiiuisile of leadership 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 43 

is ability to lead, and that ability Theodore Roosevelt 
possessed in full measure. Whether in a game or in 
the hunting field, in a fight or in politics, he sought 
the front, where, as Webster once remarked, there is 
always plenty of room for those who can get there. 
His instinct was always to say " come " rather than 
" go," and he had the talent of command. 

His also was the rare gift of arresting attention 
sharply and suddenly, a vei-y precious attribute, and 
one easier to illustrate than to describe. This arrest- 
ing power is like a common experience, which we 
have all had on entering a picture gallery, of seeing 
at once and before all others a single picture among 
the many on the walls. For a moment you see nothing 
else, although you may be surrounded with master- 
pieces. In that particular picture lurks a strange, 
capturing, gripping fascination as impalpable as it 
is unmistakable. Roosevelt had this same arresting, 
fascinating quality. Whether in the legislature at 
Albany, the Civil Service Commission at Washington, 
or the police commission in New York, whether in 
the Spanish War or on the plains among the cowboys, 
he was always vivid, at times startling, never to be 
overlooked. Nor did this power stop here. He not 
only without effort or intention drew the eager atten- 
tion of the people to himself, he could also engage 



44 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

and fix their thoughts upon anything which happened 
to interest liim. It might be a man or a book, re- 
lornied spelling or some large historical cjuestion, his 
traveling libraiy or the military preparation of the 
Iniled States, he had but to say, " See how interesting, 
how impoitant, is this man or this event," and 
thousands, even millions, of people would reply. 
" We never thought of this before, but it certainly is 
one of the most interesting, most absorbing things in 
the world." He touched a subject and it suddenly 
began to glow as when the high-power electric current 
touches the metal and the white light starts forth and 
dazzles the onlooking eyes. We know the air played 
by the Pied Piper of Ilanielin no belter than we 
know why Theodore Roosevelt thus drew the interest 
of men after him. We only know they followed 
wherever his insatiable activity of mind invited 
them. 

Men follow also most readily a leadei" who is always 
there before lliem. clearly xisible and just where lhe\- 
expect iiim. 'I'hey are esiucially eager to go forwanl 
with a man who never sounds a retreat. Roosevelt 
was always advancing, always struggling to make 
things better, to carry some much-needed reform, and 
help humanity to a largi'r chance, to a fairer condi- 
lion. to a ha])pier liti'. Moreoxcr. he looked always 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 45 

for an ethical question. He was at his best when he 
was fighting the battle of right against wrong. He 
thought soundly and wisely upon questions of expe- 
diency or of political economy, but they did not rouse 
him or bring him the absorbed interest of the eternal 
conflict between good and evil. Yet he was never 
impractical, never blinded by counsels of perfection, 
never seeking to make the better the enemy of the 
good. He wished to get the best, but he would strive 
for all that was possible even if it fell short of the 
highest at which he aimed. He studied the lessons of 
history, and did not think the past bad simply because 
it was the past, or the new good solely because it was 
new. He sought to try all questions on their intrinsic 
merits, and that was why he succeeded in advancing, 
in making government and society better, where 
others, who would be content with nothing less than 
an abstract perfection, failed. He would never com- 
promise a principle, but he was eminently tolerant of 
honest differences of opinion. He never hesitated to 
give generous credit where credit seemed due, 
whether to friend or opponent, and in this way he 
gathered recruits and yet never lost adherents. 

The criticism most commonly made upon Theodore 
Roosevelt was that he was impulsive and impetuous; 
that he acted without thinking. He would have been 



4G THEODORE ROOSEN-ELT. 

the last to claim infallibility. His head did not turn 
when fame came to him and choruses of admiration 
sounded in his ears, for he was neither vain nor credu- 
lous. He knew that he made mistakes, and never hesi- 
tated to admit them to be mistakes and to correct them 
or put them bchiiul him when satisfied that they were 
such. But he wasted no time in mourning, explain- 
ing, or vainly regretting them. It is also true that the 
middle way did not attract him. He was apt to go far, 
both in praise and censure, although nobody could 
analyze qualities and balance them justly in judging 
men better than he. He felt strongly, and as he had 
no concealments of any kind, he expressed himself in 
like manner. Hnl vehemence is not violence, nor is 
earnestness anger, which a very wise man delined as a 
brief madness. It was all according to his nature, just 
as his eager cordiality in nu-cting men and women, his 
keen interest in other people's care or joys, was not 
assumed, as some persons thought who did not know 
liini. 11 was all profoundly nalnral. it was all real, 
and in that A\ay and in no other was lie able to meet 
and giec'l his fellow nun. He spoke out with the most 
unrestrained frankness at all times and in all com- 
jjanies. Not a day passed in the Presidency when he 
was not guilty of what the trained (lij)lonialist would 
call indiscretions. Hut llie frankness had its own re- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 47 

ward. There never was a President whose confidence 
was so respected or with whom the barriers of honor 
which surround private conversation were more scru- 
pulously observed. At the same time, when the pub- 
lic interest required, no man could be more wisely 
reticent. He was apt, it is true, to act suddenly and 
decisively, but it was a complete mistake to suppose 
that he therefore acted without thought or merely on 
a momentary impulse. When he had made up his 
mind he was resolute and unchanging, but he made up 
his mind only after much reflection, and there never 
was a President in the White House who consulted not 
only friends but political opponents and men of all 
kinds and conditions more than Theodore Roosevelt. 
When he had reached his conclusion he acted quickly 
and drove hard at his object, and this it was, probably, 
which gave an impression that he acted sometimes 
hastily and thoughtlessly, which was a complete mis- 
apprehension of the man. His action was emphatic, 
but emphasis implies reflection not thoughtlessness. 
One can not even emphasize a word without a process, 
however slight, of mental differentiation. 

The feeling that he was impetuous and impulsive 
was also due to the fact that in a sudden, seemingly 
unexpected crisis he would act with great rapidity. 
This happened when he had been for weeks, per- 



48 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

haps for months, considering what he should do if 
such a crisis arose. He always believed that one of 
the most important elements of success, whether in 
public or in private life, was to know what one meant 
to do under i,'iven circumstances. If he saw the pos- 
sibility of perilous (piestions arisinj^, it was iiis prac- 
tice to think over carefully just how he would act 
under certain contingencies. Many of the contingen- 
cies never arose. Now and then a contingency be- 
came an actuality, and then he was ready. Me knew 
what he meant to do, he acted at once, and some critics 
considered him impetuous, impulsiw. and, therefore, 
dangerous, because they did not know that lie had 
thought the cjuestion all out beforehand. 

\'ery many people, powerful elements in the com- 
munity, regarded him at one time as a dangerous 
radical, bent upon overthrowing all the safeguards 
of society and planning to tear out the foundations of 
an ordered liberty. As a matter of fact, what Theo- 
dore Roosexeil was trying to do was to strengthen 
American society and American Government by 
demonstrating to the American people that he was 
aiming at a larger economic (.'(|uality and a innie gen- 
ei'ons industrial op|)ortunity lor all men, and that 
any combination of capital or of business, which 
threatened the control of the (io\ernment bv the 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 49 

people who made it, was to be curbed and resisted, 
just as he would have resisted an enemy who tried to 
take possession of the city of Washington. He had 
no hostility to a man because he had been successful 
in business or because he had accumulated a fortune. 
If the man had been honestly successful and used his 
fortune wisely and beneficenth^ he was regarded by 
Theodore Roosevelt as a good citizen. The vulgar 
hatred of wealth found no place in his heart. He had 
but one standard, one test, and that was whether a 
man, rich or poor, was an honest man, a good citizen, 
and a good American. He tried men, whether they 
were men of " big business " or members of a labor 
union, by their deeds, and in no other way. The 
tyranny of anarchy and disorder, such as is now deso- 
lating Russia, was as hateful to him as any other 
tyranny, whether it came from an autocratic system 
like that of Germany or from the misuse of organized 
capital. Personally he believed in every man earn- 
ing his own living, and he earned money and was glad 
to do so; but he had no desire or taste for making 
money, and he was entirely indifferent to it. The 
simplest of men in his own habits, the only thing he 
really would have "liked to have done with ample 
wealth would have been to give freely to the many 
good objects which continually interested him. 



50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

Theodore Roosevelt's power, liowever. and the 
main source of all his achifvi-nieiil, \vas not in the 
ollitcs wiiich he iield. for liiose offices were- to him 
only opportunities, but in the extraordinary hold 
which he established and retained over great bodies 
of men. lie had the lari^est personal foUowinj^ ever 
attained by any man in our history. I do not mean 
by this the followinj^ which comes from f;reat political 
ollice or from parly candidacy. There have been 
many men who have held the highest otlices in our 
history by the votes of their fellow countrymen who 
have never had aii> thing more than a very small per- 
sonal following. By personal following is meant here 
that which supports and sustains and goes with a 
man simply because he is himself; a following which 
does not care whether their leader and chief is in 
oflice or out of oflice, wiiich is with him and behind 
him because they, one and all, believe in him and love 
him and are ready to stand by him for the sole and 
simple reason that I hey have |)erfect faith that he 
will lead them where they wish and where they 
ought to go. This following Theodore Roosevelt had, 
as I have said, in a larger degree tiian anyone in our 
history, and the fact that he had it and what he did 
with it for [he welfare of his fellow men iiave given 
him his great place and his hisling fame. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 51 

This is not mere assertion; it was demonstrated, as 
I have already pointed out, by the vote of 1912, and at 
all times, from the day of his accession to the Presi- 
dency onward, there were millions of people in this 
country ready to follow Theodore Roosevelt and vote 
for him, or do anything else that he wanted, whenever 
he demanded their support or raised his standard. It 
was this great mass of support among the people, and 
which probably was never larger than in these last 
years, that gave him his immense influence upon pub- 
lic opinion, and public opinion was the weapon which 
he used to carry out all the policies which he wished to 
bring to fulfillment and to consolidate all the achieve- 
ments upon which he had set his heart. This extraor- 
dinary popular strength was not given to him solely 
because the people knew him to be honest and brave, 
because they were certain that physical fear was an 
emotion unknown to him, and that his moral courage 
equaled the physical. It was not merely because they 
thoroughly believed him to be sincere. All this knowl- 
edge and belief, of course, went to making his popular 
leadership secure; but there was much more in it than 
that, something that went deeper, basic elements which 
were not upon the surface which were due to quali- 
ties of temperament interwoven with his very being. 



52 THEODORE F\OOSEVELT. 

inseparable from him niul yet sublk' ratiier than obvi- 
ous in their effects. 

All men admire couraj^c, and tlial he possessed in 
the highest degree. But he had also something larger 
and rarer than courage, in the ordinary acceptation 
of tiie word. When an assassin shot him at Mil- 
waukee he was severely wounded; how severely he 
could not tell, but it might well have been mortal. 
lie went on to the great meeting awaiting him and 
there, bleeding, sulfering, ignorant of his fate, but 
still unconquered, made his speech and went from the 
stage to the liospital. What bore him uj) was the 
dauntless spirit which could rise victorious over pain 
and darkness and the unknown and meet the duly 
of the hour as if all were well. .V spirit like this 
awakens in all men more than admiralion. it kindles 
affection and appeals to every generous impulse. 

Very dilTerent, but equally compelling, was another 
cpiality. There is nothing in human beings at once 
so sane and so sympathelic as a sense of humor. 
This great gift the good fairies conferred upon Theo- 
dore Roosevelt at his birth in unstinted measure. 
No man ever had a more abundant sense of humor — 
joyous. irrc|)ressil)le luunor — and it never deserted 
him. Even a! the most serious and even perilous 
niomc'iils if tlicre was a gleam of humor anywhere 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 53 

he saw it and rejoiced and helped himself with it 
ovei' the rough places and in the dark hour. He loved 
fun, loved to joke and chaff, and, what is more 
uncommon, greatly enjoyed being chaffed himself. 
His ready smile and contagious laugh made countless 
friends and saved him from many an enmity. Even 
more generally effective than his humor, and yet 
allied to it, was the universal knowledge that Roose- 
velt had no secrets from the American people. 

Yet another quality — perhaps the most engaging of 
all — was his homely, generous humanity which en- 
abled him to speak directly to the primitive instincts 
of man. 

He dwelt with the tribes of the marsh and moor. 

He sate at the board of kings; 
He tasted the toil of the burdened slave 

And the joy that triumph brings. 
But whether to jungle or palace hall 

Or white-walled tent he came, 
He was brother to king and soldier and slave 
His welcome was the same. 

He was very human and intensely American, and 
this knit a bond between him and the American 
people which nothing could ever break. And then he 
had 5'et one more attraction, not so impressive, per- 
haps, as the others, but none the less very important 
and very captivating. He never by any chance bored 
the American people. They might laugh at him or 



54 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

laii^li Nvilh hini. they niij^lit like- wlial lie said or dis- 
like it, they might agree with him or disagree with 
him, but they were never wearied of him, and he 
never failed to interest tluni. He was ne\er heavy, 
laborious, or dull. If he had made any elTort to be 
always interesting and entertaining he would have 
failed and been tiresome, lie was unfailingly attrac- 
tive, because he was always perfectly natural and his 
own unconscious self. And so all these things com- 
bined to gi\e him his hold upon the American people, 
not only upon their mind.s, but upon their hearts and 
their instincts, which nothing could ever weakeii, and 
which made him one of the most remarkable, as he 
was one of the strongest, characters that the history of 
popular government can show. He was also — and 
this is \ei-y revealing and explanatory, loo, of his vast 
popularity — a man of ideals. He did not expose them 
daily on the roadside with language lluttering about 
them like the Thibetan who lies his slip of j)aper to 
the prayer wheel whirling in the wind. He kept his 
ideals to himself until the hour of fulfillment arrived. 
Some of them were the dreams of boyhood, from 
which he never departed, and which 1 have seen him 
carry out shyly and yet thoroughly and with intense 
j)ers()iial satisfaciion. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 55 

He had a touch of the knight errant in his daily life, 
although he would never have admitted it; but it was 
there. It was not visible in the medieval form of shin- 
ing armor and dazzling tournaments, but in the never- 
ceasing effort to help the poor and the oppressed, to 
defend and protect women and children, to right the 
wronged and succor the downtrodden. Passing by on 
the other side was not a mode of travel through life 
ever possible to him; and yet he was as far distant 
from the professional philanthropist as could well be 
imagined, for all he tried to do to help his fellow men 
he regarded as part of the day's work to be done and 
not talked about. No man ever prized sentiment or 
hated sentimentality more than he. He preached un- 
ceasingly the familiar morals which lie at the bottom 
of both famil}^ and public life. The blood of some 
ancestral Scotch covenanter or of some Dutch re- 
formed preacher facing the tyranny of Philip of Spain 
was in his veins, and with his large opportunities and 
his vast audiences he was alwaj^s readj^ to appeal for 
justice and righteousness. But his own personal 
ideals he never attempted to thrust upon the world 
until the day came when they were to be translated 
into realities of action. 

When the future historian traces Theodore Roose- 
velt's extraordinary career he will find these embodied 



56 THEODOHE ROOSEVELT. 

ideals planted like milestones along the road over 
which he marched. They never left him. His ideal 
of public service was to be found in his life, and as 
his life drew to its close lie had to meet his ideal of 
sacrifice face to face. All his sons went from him to 
the war, and one was killed upon the field of honor. 
Of all the ideals that lift men up, the hardest to fulfill 
is the ideal of sacrifice. Theodore Roosevelt met it as 
he had all others and fulfilled it to the last jot of its 
terrible demands. His country asked the sacrifice and 
lie gave it with .solemn pride and uncomplaining lips. 
This is not the place to speak of his private life, 
but within that sacred circle no man was ever more 
l)lesse(l in llie utter devotion of a noble wife and the 
jjassionate love of his children. The absolute purity 
and beauty of his family life tell us why the \nidv 
and interest which his fellow countrymen felt in 
him were always touched wilii the warm light of 
love. In (lie home so dear to him, in his sleej). death 
came, and — 

So Valiant-for-Trutli passi-d over and all the trumpets 
souiukil lor liiiii on llu' other side. 



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